Hydraulic accumulators of the described type are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent No. 2576998, Japanese Utility Model Registration No. 2589047, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2002-155901, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (kokai) No. 2001-336502. Such a conventional hydraulic accumulator has a liquid chamber which communicates with a liquid inflow port and a liquid outflow port and which has a predetermined volume even when no pressurized operating liquid is accumulated, and the liquid outflow port is disposed below the liquid chamber. Therefore, when the hydraulic accumulator is attached to a support member, air remains within the liquid chamber. Notably, the reason why the liquid chamber has a predetermined volume even when no pressurized operating liquid is accumulated is to improve the pulsation absorption characteristic at the beginning of pressurized accumulation of the operating liquid.
However, in the above-identified conventional hydraulic accumulators, both a liquid-chamber-side end of an inflow passageway, which connects the liquid chamber and the liquid inflow port, and a liquid-chamber-side end of an outflow passageway, which connects the liquid chamber and the liquid outflow port, are open to a lower portion of the liquid chamber. Therefore, air cannot be removed efficiently by air bleeding operation (operation of progressively supplying an operating liquid to the liquid inflow port of the hydraulic accumulator) which is carried out when the hydraulic accumulator is attached to a support member. Specifically, during the air bleeding operation, the operating liquid flows from the liquid inflow port to the liquid oufflow port via the liquid chamber. However, since the operating liquid flows only through a bottom portion of the liquid chamber, there is a fear that a large amount of air remains within the liquid chamber, and the air bleeding operation cannot be performed properly.